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Download PDF for ACM-2007.19.7_07 (project ID 12257)
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DECEMBER, 1860. DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. 375 [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] description of the cunning of the foxes, when they found out the manner in which the hunters set their gun-traps, with the trigger fastened by a line to the bait, so that the moment the foxes attempted to take the bait, the gun went off and the thief was shot in the very act of robbery. When they found this out they would dig a trench in the snow underneath the line and bait, and then, advancing to the bait below the range of the shot, would draw it down and run off with it, while the shot whizzed over their heads perfectly harmless. (Cheers.) Just thus the opponents of abolitionism are teaching the slaveholder how to evade the charge of guilt with which the Word of God is loaded and aimed against him. Bu refusing to brand slaveholding as sin, you enable the robber to steal away his prey, unscathed by the shot. He takes your bait, but avoids your bullet, and you cannot touch him. It is not possible to level him but with the grape shot of God's Word fired at him as a slaveholder, and at his slaveholding as always sin. (Applause.) You can do nothing but with the utmost plainness, applying the very denunciations of the Word of God. If the church and the ministry in the United States would unitedly do this, slavery would not stand ; the slaveholder could not commit this crime and walk about as a respectable man and a Christian ; the system of slavery and the act of slaveholding would come to an end. But so terrible and universal is the plague and fallacy of this wickedness --so fearfully has the infection struct even in our piety, that not only has the revival of religion failed to exert any perceptible influence against it ; but if any one church and minister take openly and avowedly the ground of abolitionism, and call upon other churches and ministers to take the same ground with and upon the Word of God against slaveholding as inconsistent with Christianity, and to demand in God's name the immediate deliverance of those who are now enslaved, forthwith there is a union of the churches and the ministry to put a stop to the career of that church--to spike their guns--to silence what is denounced as their violence, vituperation, and fanaticism, and to deliver them over as infidels to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. (Laughter and loud cheers.) If obloquy and abuse--as Burke has grandly said--are essential pats of triumph, our triumph is complete. (Hear, hear.) Now, the secret of the conflict as it rages against my particular church more than anywhere else, is simply and solely the avowed determination on our part, trusting to God to keep up this battle for the immediate and entire abolition of slavery. It is because we avow ourselves abolitionists, and are determined to be nothing at all in this great cause, if not that, and that too by the direct command of the Almighty, to break every yoke, and let the enslaved go free. (Cheers.) God never commanded us to set ourselves against the extension of slavery, and at the same time to let it remain where it is as a vested right. He commands us to abolish it. He speaks for the sake of the enslaved, and not for that abomination of hypocrisy and selfishness, the white man's party. (Hear, hear.) God speaks for the right and the relief of the victims of this cruelty--the four millions and their helpless babes now crushed down into merchandise by its avarice and lusts-- that they be delivered just where they are, and raised up and treated as human beings. -- Our anti-slavery is anti slavery and abolitionism at God's command, just where slavery is, and not where it is not. And it is because of this that we are cast out as fanatics and madmen, because we direct the fire of God's Word against the present slaveholder in America as the man-stealer, and demand the release of the very slaves whom now, at this moment, with the sanction of the church, and the pretended authority of God, he holds as his chattels. (Cheers.) It is because we insist upon this as a present duty, and preach against slaveholding as a present sin. It is because we do not let off a mere straggling expression now and then on a fast day -- a transitory [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] flash as of lightning at midnight--but endeavor to keep up a continuous, steady stream of fire and light upon and against this great wickedness. (Great cheering.) And we are denounced because we demand the excommunication of the slaveholders from fellowship as Christians while they hold this sin; because we implore the American Board to cast out the slaveholder from their missionary churches ; because we endeavor to arouse and unite all Christendom on this sure and righteous principle against this sin. The N. Y. Independent denounces us as abolitionists, and asks, Is Dr. Tyng an abolitionist? Is Dr. Gordon an abolitionist? Is judge Jessup an abolitionist? Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees believed on him? But this fanatic people, who knoweth not the law, are accursed. The same journal pronounces judgment against me as the advocate of the now almost universally repudiated principle of Christian excommunication against this sin of slaveholding, and yet when it becomes necessary to make Christian men in this country believe that they and the churches are as thorough as my church or myself on this point, do not hesitate to claim that as their principle. They denounce it, and are for holding and proclaiming it at home, but proclaim it themselves abroad. I introduced a resolution at the meeting of the American Board, declaring slaveholding an immorality, to be treated as such by the churches, and the resolution was opposed by Dr. Bacon of the Independent, and was rejected. I introduced a similar resolution in the Congregational body of ministers, declaring slaveholding an immorality to be preached against, and it was opposed there also, but passed at length, rejecting, however, the word 'slaveholding' at the instance of Dr. Thompson, thus depriving the resolution of its grasp upon the conscience of the slaveholder, and enabling him to evade both the law and the gospel, being admitted as a slaveholder into the Christian church, and into the missionary churches. The resolution would not have been introduced at all, in any shape, but for me, and at my urgency ; for the war against slavery was being carried on, not in the very unpopular way of charging slavery as sin, but in the popular way of denouncing the Tract Society for not being willing to denounce its abuses in their publications, and all Dr. Thompson's efforts and resolutions were only in condemnation of the Tract Society. My resolution went against slaveholding as in itself sinful, and this the editors of the Independent, and the great body of the churches and the ministry, reject as ultraism and fanaticism ; and yet, in this country, and for the purpose of making it believed here, that my view and the views of my church are not in any degree in advance of theirs, the editors of the Independent now claim as theirs the very principle which they have denounced me for advocating; and Dr. Thompson goes so far as to claim the very resolution on this subject, prepared and introduced by me, as his own resolution, because of that alteration which was proposed and carried by him,and which, in the use made of it, takes away nearly all of its efficacy. (Hear, here.) To get credit in this country for the churches I myself am presented as simply the representative of the purest and the best anti-slavery of the churches, and yet, to prevent the success of my efforts here, I am denounced and my church misrepresented as violent, fanatical, extreme, imprudent, disorganizing. This double representation must be a mystery to you, for I myself stand perplexed and in doubt before it. (Cheers.) 'The voice is Jacob's and the hands are Esau's' Nay, there are two voices, and the one denies the other.-- The voice at home says aside to the churches, 'Gentlemen, Dr. Cheever and his church misrepresent and vituperate us, and are endeavoring to get money on false pretenses, as if they were persecuted for righteousness' sake, and as if they were truer in their anti-slavery principle, and more faithful to them than others. They are fanatical and violent abolitionists, whom we disown, and warn all the [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] country against supporting them or following their example. They are making the pulpit and the Word of God a mere vehicle of cursing and of bad temper--an Ebal without any answering Gerizim--and are doing infinite mischief to the cause of which they pretend to be the warmest advocates. We, on the other hand, are full of love and peace, and manage to carry on the war against slavery without strife, without any offence given or taken in the fullness of the blessings of millennial glory, the lion and the lamb lying down together in the same fold. They would expel every slaveholder from the churches as a man stealer ; we abhor such wholesale bitterness and calling of hard names, and we abjure the abolitionism of which they are the prophets and supporters. We maintain our anti-slavery principles without any opposition or unpopularity in our churches ; the people know our principles, and that is enough ; we do not need to be always proclaiming them, and as to slavery at the South, we have no responsibility--no right to interfere. Dr. Cheever and his church, and the Church Anti-Slavery Society, are all in the same condemnation of abolitionism, and we denounce them as unworthy of our confidence, and very dangerous to follow in their ruinous career.' The other voice, the voice abroad, speaketh in this wise, it being as envious a creature as ever was imagined in Prospero's Island. (A laugh.) His backward voice is to utter bad speeches, and to detract ; his forward voice now is to speak well of his friend-- 'Gentlemen, Dr. Cheever is worthy of all honor and praise, and you may be sure he will always be faithful to the cause of the enslaved. We send him to you as a simple representative of the best anti slavery sentiment of the churches of New England. There is nothing new in his views, nor is he the only man among us who is faithful to them. But he is worthy of your confidence ; take him to your hearts, and give him a grand reception. Let his church go--but take care of the pastor-- avoid all sympathy with them, but shower your compliments on him, for we admire his faithfulness, and maintain his views.' Now, upon my word, I don't know what to make of this. I cannot understand it. If you can, you are welcome to any elucidation of the mystery ; but I pray you bear me witness that most unwillingly do I refer to this matter, or waste one word upon it, being compelled to do so by the industrious circulation of injurious and ambiguous voices in this country, intended to produce a sentiment of distrust towards me and my church, and effectually to prevent the success of any appeal which I might have desired to make for sympathy and aid. The most absurd and inconsistent slanders have been printed and scattered abroad against us. If we engaged ourselves in throwing back the mud and stones which are showered upon us, or even in carting them out of the way, forty scavengers would have to be employed nearly all their time, and we could do nothing but oversee them. (Cheers.) But, after all, they are blundering antagonists. They have advertised their opposition in a protest signed by some thirty persons, and printed in Great Britain, against the action of the church in support of its pastor, and against my own efforts to obtain encouragement in this dreadful conflict on behalf of the enslaved. (Cheers.) The appeal of the church, if successful, mortifies and defeats them, and they are absolutely fanatical in their bitterness against it. I am reminded of an anecdote of the Pasha of Egypt having to drill the Egyptian army in European tactics. The new Christian system, as it was called, was unpopular among the Turks, even to fanaticism, and on one occasion, while putting the men through the exercise of platoon firing, the Pasha heard the whistling of several bullets about his own ears. He coolly stopped, and gave the order to cease the exercise, and then sharply reproved the men for being such contemptibly bad shots ; not one of them had hit him. But begin again, said he, you can do better another time. (Laughter and cheers.) Now, it is impossible for me, [[/column 3]]
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